


cactus

by kantamu (anticommute)



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticommute/pseuds/kantamu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Overlapping puzzle pieces from one (or two) too many boxes. Woohyun's coffee is bitter, Myungsoo breaks up with his girlfriend, and they're only just roommmates. (Mentions of fighting/domestic violence, sex.)</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. hyperbolic inverse

Myungsoo buys the cactus on a Thursday. His roommate is never home on Thursday afternoons. He puts the cactus on top of the bookshelf and pulls out his textbooks. There is a midterm on Friday, and he still hasn't studied.

His phone buzzes shortly after. `Hyung help` the text reads. An image is attached. Myungsoo glances at it, decides the plea for help isn't urgent, and shoves the phone back into his pocket.

Friday is tomorrow. Myungsoo muses over this thought, taking it in stride when the door opens, and he almost wishes he could be surprised. He sighs. Studying will have to wait.

"Coffee?" Sungyeol asks, poking his head in.

Myungsoo shrugs, pushes his chair back, and follows Sungyeol out the door. To be honest, Myungsoo has never been much of a coffee drinker. These days, he drinks six coffees a week. Sungyeol goes home on Sundays. Sometimes, so does Myungsoo.

Sungyeol is talking about his Economics midterm—Myungsoo still has Calculus II on his mind. Integration and limits to infinity, absolute value f of x, Skorokhod space and càdlàg. He nods and hmms at the appropriate times, but he lasts all of one flight of stairs before Sungyeol punches him on the shoulder and demands to know what he's thinking about.

Myungsoo shrugs and grins. "r2=2a2cos2θ?"

"What," Sungyeol deadpans. "Geek. Why do I know you?"

"Mmhmm." His phone vibrates again. Myungsoo ignores it. "I heard your roommate got a girlfriend."

Sungyeol makes a gagging noise. "I am going to kill him if they make out on my bed again."

Myungsoo just chuckles. The usual uninspired off-white walls and green carpeting of the dorm foyer is complemented by muddy footprints. "It's still raining," Myungsoo comments.

"You should have told me if you knew!" Sungyeol says. He eyes the steady drizzle outside, the coffee shop across the street, and Myungsoo. Myungsoo raises an eyebrow. Sungyeol grabs Myungsoo by the wrist, shoves open the door, and runs.

Really, he wishes he could be surprised.

-

It starts like this:

Myungsoo is sitting at a table in the library cafe one day with a half-eaten muffin in front of him and a laptop perched on his knees when a boy takes the seat across from him and says hi.

In hindsight, it hadn't been remarkable in the slightest.

-

The coffee is, as usual, bland. Myungsoo doesn't mind. Sungyeol bitches about it, but he bitches about it at least three times a week. Myungsoo is surprised he doesn't complain about it every day—Sungyeol points out that the days he doesn't complain, it's actually decent. Myungsoo notices that these are the days the boy in Sungyeol's Business Ethics class is at the cashier, the one who draws hearts on the disposable coffee cups of every girl that passes through.

Sungyeol doesn't notice.

Myungsoo would like to say he's lost in his own thoughts, but the reality is that he could have answered Sungjong's plea for help half an hour ago and the coffee is starting to cool. "You know, we should actually _do_ something some day," Sungyeol is saying.

Myungsoo can't help but laugh a little. "We're not doing something right now?" he asks.

Sungyeol rolls his eyes. "We're doing _school_. Don't tell me this is how you imagined university life was going to be."

"I imagined more time in the library," Myungsoo answers honestly. Sungyeol throws a napkin at Myungsoo's face.

Myungsoo's phone buzzes again, and this time, he does flick the message open. "Who is it?" Sungyeol wants to know. "High school friend," Myungsoo answers. "A girl?" Sungyeol asks. "R-squared equals two a cos two theta," Myungsoo says blandly, and hits send.

Sungyeol wears his heart on his sleeve, Myungsoo thinks sometimes. It's not quite the truth, but it's close enough.

-

Myungsoo buys the cactus on a Thursday. He has an assignment due on Friday, and he hasn't started.

"Coffee?" Sungyeol asks.

Myungsoo shrugs, pushes his chair back, and follows him out the door.

 

 

 

 


	2. Like Imperfect Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Overlapping puzzle pieces from one (or two) too many boxes. Woohyun's coffee is bitter, Myungsoo breaks up with his girlfriend, and they're only just roommmates. (Mentions of fighting/domestic violence, sex.)

They aren't perfect—they don't fit together like pieces of a jigsaw, they don't complement each other, they don't bring out the best (or the worst). They don't make a whole. They don't make halves. Or thirds. They don't make anything at all. All they do is fall in and out of each others lives at the worst of times, the best of times, all the time.

Woohyun freezes, hand held mid-air mid-strike—"You better get that," Sungyeol says tonelessly. He straightens his shirt, bends down to upright a chair, nods at the door. The knocking has stopped; Woohyun pauses to smooth down his hair before he twists open the lock.

It hasn't stopped raining since mid-afternoon, and he's soaked. "Hey," Woohyun says, and steps aside to let him in. Sungyeol pauses in collecting the magazines scattered across the floor—he doesn't bother to ask who it is.

"I just need somewhere to stay, for a few days," Myungsoo says.

"Just stay for good," Sungyeol mutters.

"Washroom, towel, he'll get you clothes." Woohyun ushers him in, directs him around the mess in the living room, points him to the washroom even though Myungsoo knows where it is. Sungyeol drops the pile of magazines onto the coffee table loudly, eyes narrowing briefly at Woohyun before he whirls and walks into the bedroom. Woohyun ignores him, rubs tenderly at the rising bump on the back of his head, and goes to find a rag to mop up after Myungsoo.

He hears a door shut and another open and the sound of rushing water in the shower. In the meantime, he pulls out two mugs from the cupboard, and after a moment of deliberation, a third. Sungyeol will complain that Woohyun can't make coffee—it all tastes the exact same anyway. He can make the damn coffee himself if he wants.

The bedroom is still empty when Woohyun opens the door, mugs balanced on the tray. He leaves the tray on the dresser, pushing aside half-empty cosmetics and a mirror with a crack down the middle they've never bothered to replace. The city backlights the raindrops that fall in sheets against the uncurtained window, a faint illumination over the unmade bed and the papers sprawled across the desk. The charge light on the laptop twinkles green at him. Woohyun lets a soft sigh slip through as he drops heavily onto the bed, running a hand through his hair. His eyes close briefly, before he rolls his shoulders back and stands.

The door to the bathroom is open. Myungsoo's hair is still wet, but he's dry and dressed in a black cotton t-shirt and grey sweats, and wedged between the tiled wall and Sungyeol, Sungyeol pressing desperate kisses against Myungsoo's mouth. Sungyeol glances up when Woohyun walks in, pulls away just enough so that Woohyun can see the line of red marks at the base of Myungsoo's neck, curls his fingers around Myungsoo's wrist as he leans forward with a look at Woohyun that says _mine mine mine_ and Woohyun would have backed out if Myungsoo hadn't blinked an insistent _stay_.

They stumble into the bedroom, a tangle of limbs and damp hair and eager touches in places they'd forgotten existed, Woohyun's tongue in Sungyeol's mouth with Myungsoo's arm around his waist and Sungyeol's hand down Myungsoo's pants. Myungsoo is the one who pulls away, digs in the second drawer of the bedside table for the lube and condoms, even though he knows just as well as the two of them that no one's patient enough for the latter. Woohyun pushes Sungyeol into the mattress, ignoring the way the blankets are bunched uncomfortably against his shoulders, the hiss of pain as Sungyeol's head makes contact with the wall as Woohyun shoves. Sungyeol bites at Woohyun's lip in retaliation, and Woohyun rolls aside to pull Myungsoo down instead.

In the morning, Woohyun will be the one to leave, Sungyeol's accusations fresh in his memory and hot on his dick, a trail of bruises messy against his torso, as Myungsoo had stared with something not quite amounting to comprehension struggling to surface in his eyes.

In the morning, Woohyun will think that this is the way it should (never) be.

-

Myungsoo wakes up to an empty bed and the sound of the shower running. A sneeze works its way through him, and he burrows a little deeper into the blankets. He has the whole day to do the laundry. He's missed the cat that makes its home at the laundromat—he'd been so busy with Sunhee and school and work that he hasn't seen the others in longer than he can remember.

He stretches lazily, blinking out the sun in his eyes before pulling the blankets over his head altogether. He's sticky and gross and still unclothed, but it's mid-morning and he can't be bothered to move just yet. At least, not until Sungyeol comes back into the room, bare feet loud against the wooden floor.

"Rise and shine," he says, pulling the covers off the bed. Myungsoo grunts, sitting upright with a shake of his head.

Sungyeol is dressed already, t-shirt and sweats, leaning against the dresser with a mug in his hand. "Coffee," he says when he notices Myungsoo looking. "It's cold."

"Woohyun?" Myungsoo asks. Sungyeol frowns—Myungsoo thinks back to last night, the brief snatches of argument he'd heard through the door. He doesn't want to talk about this.

Sungyeol turns away. "He's left," he says. Myungsoo bites his tongue and doesn't point out he was talking about the coffee. When Sungyeol turns back, he's holding the mug Myungsoo usually uses.

"Want it?" he asks.

Myungsoo nods, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. In full daylight, his nakedness sends a flush creeping up the back of his neck—he reaches over and clutches the blanket to him in embarrassment. Sungyeol laughs and walks over, handing him the cup of coffee as he joins him on the bed.

Sungyeol kicks his feet against the floor, the only sound other than the creaking of the bed and the quiet hum of traffic from outside. The coffee is too bitter for his taste—Myungsoo prefers more sugar.

"We broke up," Myungsoo says.

"Mm. Sort of figured." Sungyeol puts the cup down on the floor, empty, before he leans all the way back and tucks his hands behind his head. "I'm surprised you lasted that long."

Myungsoo mimics his action, his own cup still over half full. "Shut up," he says, but there's no heat behind it. The rain had taken care of that last night. He'd been surprised, angry, upset—

"You can stay as long as you like, you know," Sungyeol says.

"Just for a few days," Myungsoo promises.

He isn't surprised when Sungyeol rolls over and kisses him hungrily. It tastes like the coffee Woohyun makes, even if Woohyun insists it all tastes the same. Woohyun never adds enough sugar. It's bad for them, he says.

They take out the laundry together. It's a crisp autumn day, and when they get to the laundromat, Myungsoo finds out from Sungyeol that the cat had died.

-

The apartment is technically leased under Sungyeol and Woohyun's names, but when Woohyun calls a week after he disappears and says he's moved in with his boyfriend, Sungyeol reminds Myungsoo that he's free to stay, if he wants. Only if he wants. Myungsoo agrees, goes back to his old place once more just to make sure all the windows are closed and the fridge is empty, and they settle into a rhythm like a chorus they've heard one too many times. Sungyeol digs out Myungsoo's old clothes before despairing at his taste—they end up going shopping on a Sunday afternoon, dropping ice cream onto Sungyeol's jacket and spilling coke on Myungsoo's pants. Sungyeol bitches and Myungsoo shoves him off the sidewalk, and they get take-out (Chinese) for dinner and end up fucking on the living room couch.

Sungyeol does his homework in the bedroom and Myungsoo curls up with his laptop on the sofa. On Tuesdays when Myungsoo works late and Sungyeol has class early Wednesday morning, they maybe see each other in the morning if Myungsoo wakes up when Sungyeol clambers out of bed, or maybe not at all. On Fridays, Sungyeol cooks dinner and they count it as a miracle if the kitchen doesn't burn down. Myungsoo complains about the taste (it's always too bland, still too bland), but eats it all anyway.

Woohyun still pays his half of the rent.

Christmas passes uneventfully, and they mark New Years with a few too many kisses and vicious hangovers the morning after. Woohyun calls—Sungyeol throws the phone across the room where Myungsoo retrieves it. Sungyeol buries his face in his knees and doesn't watch them talk, doesn't watch the way Myungsoo's face softens and the way his eyes light up, the corners of his mouth curling upwards in stifled laughter. Myungsoo hangs up and asks if Sungyeol wants to go out. ( _With Woohyun, and Sunggyu, and Hoya, and everyone else,_ is what Myungsoo doesn't mention, but Sungyeol knows anyway, because it's the same thing every single damn year.)

Sungyeol asks him if he wants it to be just the two of them this time. Myungsoo agrees a little too quickly. In the morning, Sungyeol reminds him that they're just roommates.

"Like you and Woohyun?" Myungsoo asks.

Sungyeol swallows, blinks at the ceiling as he traces circles against the back of Myungsoo's hand. "Not anymore."

There's a knock on the door just before exams start. Sungyeol steps out from the shower still towelling his hair. Myungsoo glances up from where a laptop is perched precariously on one knee and a textbook on the other—Sungyeol is the one who gets the door.

"You have a key," Sungyeol points out over freshly-baked frozen pizza and ginger ale. He glances at Myungsoo. Myungsoo shrugs. Woohyun does as well.

"I thought knocking would be more polite," Woohyun says.

"Nobody missed you," Sungyeol says.

Myungsoo frowns at him. Sungyeol presses his lips together, before thinking better of it and stuffing half the slice into his mouth. "Assignment due tomorrow," he mouths around it, although it comes out in such a garbled mess he doubts that either of them understood.

He spends a few hours tapping away at his developmental psych paper, headphones slid over his ears with the bass turned all the way up. Woohyun's things are exactly where he left them—just because he moved in with Sunggyu, doesn't mean that Woohyun had moved out. After all, he and Woohyun—they were just roommates. That was all they had ever been.

It's three in the morning when Sungyeol ventures outside the bedroom. Woohyun is sleeping with his head in Myungsoo's lap, Myungsoo leaning awkwardly against the armrest. His throat clenches. He grabs a spare blanket from the unused second room, the dust on the sill illuminated grey and orange through the window. Woohyun stirs when Sungyeol tosses it over the pair of them—"I've missed you, Sungyeol-ah," he says, before his eyes drift shut again.

Sungyeol turns on his heel, and for the first time in a very long time, sleeps alone.

-

Sungyeol goes overseas after exams end, visiting a friend. Woohyun mentions to Myungsoo a boy by the name of Dongwoo, and tells Myungsoo that him and Sunggyu, they don't quite fit. (He doesn't say that _they_ don't quite fit either.) Hoya teaches him to knit, and Woohyun occupies his time with scarves and socks in between the convenience store and auditions. Myungsoo smiles over coffee and brings home take-out and sometimes Woohyun visits him at the bookstore Myungsoo works at now and brings him lunch.

Sometimes, he hears Myungsoo talking in a hushed voice as he web-cams with Sungyeol in the living room, when Myungsoo thinks Woohyun is asleep. Something twists in Woohyun's gut—he dials up Sunggyu, and complains to him about Myungsoo's fashion sense. Sunggyu hangs up on him because it's four in the morning and he has to be up in two hours, but Woohyun finds that it's easier to have a conversation with silence than it seems.

He wonders when Myungsoo will leave again. Woohyun tells himself it's only because he's scared of the dark.


	3. Colour Forces and Empty Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's more space in an atom than the atom itself, but we still can't walk through walls. Shit happens, Woohyun has a selective memory, and Myungsoo doesn't tell the whole story.

Myungsoo gets drunk and Sungyeol catches a cold—but that's not quite it either.

-

He's been watching the boy a few seats down get progressively more inebriated as the night goes on, an unbearably pink concoction nestled between his own hands. It doesn't taste bad—it's sweet—but the colour easily raises a few eyebrows. In hindsight, given the knot of girls who've been eyeing him and giggling periodically the entire time he's been here, it had been a bad idea to ask the bartender for whatever he'd made last.

It's the boy from Sungyeol's business ethics class, only with touseled hair and bags under his eyes that say he hasn't slept well in a while, half-sprawled over the bar as he occasionally exchanges words with the bartender when he wanders over in free moments. He's on his seventh shot of the night, and quite frankly, Myungsoo is wondering when he'll pass out.

It doesn't take long. Myungsoo downs the rest of his drink in one gulp and slides off the stool, walking the few steps to where Sungyeol's classmate is slumped over the bar.

"I'll take him home," he says, and the bartender's look melds quickly from confused to surprised to relieved, before confusion flickers forward again.

"You're a friend?" he asks.

Myungsoo shakes his head. "A classmate," he lies, and there's a moment of skepticism—but it's enough, and Myungsoo helps Woohyun into the back of a cab and gives him the address he'd gotten from the bartender and ends up fumbling the keys out of Woohyun's pocket one-handedly, Woohyun leaning awkwardly against his shoulder.

His name is Woohyun, and halfway through the cab ride his head lolls against Myungsoo's shoulder and his eyes blink open and he asks "who are you?" but his eyes close again before Myungsoo gets to answer, and that's alright with him too.

Woohyun doesn't live alone—there's too many shoes in the entrance way for one boy and more game controllers on the floor than one person could use, but there's no one there when Myungsoo finally gets the door open and half-drags half-walks Woohyun to the couch.

He could take him to the bedroom, but there are borders Myungsoo would rather not cross. The couch is more comfortable than a bar stool, so Myungsoo hunts for a pen and a sheet of paper to tell Sungyeol's classmate (Woohyun) that he's locked the door and left the keys under the welcome mat.

"I know you."

Myungsoo jerks back, dropping the pen and ramming his hip into the coffee table, a soft curse on his lips. Woohyun is sitting up, hand against his head, a weary look squeezing through slanted eyes. Myungsoo's heart flips—strike one.

"Sort of," Myungsoo agrees, and then: "you should go to bed. You'll get a stiff neck if you sleep on the couch."

"Your friend."

Myungsoo laughs. "He's not here," he says. "Or I wouldn't be either."

Woohyun frowns as he considers this, falls over sideways so he's curled up on the couch, a nearby cushion clutched to his chest. Myungsoo looks at the pen, the pad of lined paper, and the lines of Woohyun's eyes. He stands.

"I'll leave the keys here," Myungsoo says, and then: "I'm going now."

He's halfway to the door when Woohyun chokes out a "stay", and it is Myungsoo who ends up sleeping on the couch after watching Woohyun fall asleep on the bed, a jacket tossed across his stomach. The heating is turned up so high it slips off and onto the floor halfway through the night. The morning.

-

This is how Sungyeol tells the story.

Sungyeol wasn't there.

-

"You don't understand," Woohyun hisses, and his chin hits the faux-wooden surface with an audible thunk.

"Ow," Sunggyu intones, and hands Woohyun a glass of water. "But I do."

"Just because you're older—"

"I know better? Yes, I think I do."

"I hate you."

"Hyung."

"I hate you, _hyung_."

Sunggyu laughs and shoves the glass of water into Woohyun's hands. "At least I keep you company," he says, and leaves Woohyun to wallow in his own thoughts.

Woohyun prefers to not have thoughts at all.

Maybe this is why he finds himself bone-sore and world-weary and not-quite undressed, clinging to the arm of an almost-stranger as he stumbles into bed (his bed), doesn't let go, the not-really-but-sort-of-stranger tumbling on top of him, a weight reminiscent of a sack of potatoes or maybe rice or flour (more solid, more fluid). Maybe this is why he wakes up in the morning to a pounding headache and cup of instant coffee on his bedside drawer, and someone Woohyun tends to see three times a week for maybe ten minutes at a time staring at him from his desk chair.

"Good morning," the boy says. "I made you coffee. I thought you'd need it."

"Thanks," Woohyun says automatically—he sits up, and he wants to hurl. He hates hangovers. He hates drinking. Sunggyu calls him a lightweight—he's not wrong. And then he laughs abruptly.

" _Coffee_ ," he chortles. "Usually, I—you—"

"No, you're just at the register," the boy points out, and Woohyun supposes he's right. The shift schedules do tend to work out that way. His head is still pounding, and Woohyun thinks he would like to throw up, if only to get it over with.

"I'm going to go," the boy says. "I have class in an hour."

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks," Woohyun says. It isn't until Woohyun is shakily seeing the boy to the door that it occurs to him he doesn't know what his name is.

The boy blinks—his eyes bore into Woohyun's metaphorical soul—and his lips quirk upwards in a laugh. "Sorry, I'm not a girl," he says, and shuts the door behind him.

Later, Woohyun finds out that the boy's name is Myungsoo, his friend is down with a cold and is in Woohyun's business ethics class, and he's not on a diet because he orders something creamy and with too much sugar. For good measure, Woohyun doodles a lazy heart next to Myungsoo's name.

He's rewarded with a smile when Myungsoo discovers this, and his heart flips. Strike one.

-

This is how Sunggyu tells the story.

Sunggyu wasn't there either. And Woohyun has always been a selective narrator.

-

Myungsoo likes to think he's honest. He also likes to think he has a good memory.

  1. One of the cacti dies. It's the third from the right, and the third from the left. After a few moments of panic, a week of observation, and several hours of research later, Myungsoo concludes that it had died from dehydration—Myungsoo hadn't know that was possible.
  

  2. Hoya breaks up with his girlfriend—more accurately, she dumps him. Myungsoo doesn't know why, and he doesn't ask. Sungyeol either doesn't know or won't say anything, and Hoya doesn't tell him either. Myungsoo is okay with this. He doesn't know Sungyeol's roommate very well.
  

  3. Sungyeol catches a cold and forbids Myungsoo from visiting on the grounds that he's too much of a nerd and would get sick for sure. Myungsoo thinks that's stupid, but Sungyeol has the spirit of a mule and in some ways, has Hoya completely whipped. Myungsoo is okay with this as well.
  

  4. His own roommate gets a girlfriend. Myungsoo is okay with this too.
  

  5. The second cactus dies on a Thursday. His roommate is never home on Thursdays. Myungsoo dumps it in the garbage, spreads the soil out over a sheet of newspaper while it dries, and cleans the kitchen and bathroom while he waits.
  

  6. He gets a seventy five on his calculus midterm. He doesn't know why.
  

  7. He—
  



  
He sees the boy from the coffee shop as he's waiting under the overhang of a shop for the rain to stop, and quite frankly, he looks like shit. Myungsoo likes to think he's honest, and the honest truth is he follows him into the bar for no other reason than that it'll be warmer inside. This is when he asks the bartender for whatever drink he served last, because Myungsoo doesn't really drink, not unless he's invited, and then it's either beer or soju, whatever he's offered.

They haven't gone out for coffee all week, what with Myungsoo's exams and Sungyeol's cold. Sungyeol has exams too, and he struggles through them with a box of tissues and several layers of sweaters, too many for early February. The boy from the coffee shop looks like he hasn't slept in days—the last time Myungsoo had seen him, he'd been cheery as usual. But a lot can happen in a week. A lot can happen in a day.

Myungsoo wonders if he broke up with his girlfriend too. It's possible. It could be a trend. The girls giggling are a little too obvious—Myungsoo has half a mind to turn around and tell them that he has no intention of dating any of them. He's busy. Sort of.

He's told this is a strawberry daiquiri—it's a little too cold for the weather and a little too sweet for Myungsoo's taste, but it's okay. He wonders what the other boy is drinking—Myungsoo doesn't drink. He could still try.

The rain is starting to lighten up. Myungsoo asks for one of whatever the other boy is drinking. Two of the girls break away from the group and start talking to him—one of them is in his calculus class. "I'm in your _program_ ," she tells him smartly. Her eyes flash. Their program isn't very big. The other smiles at him shyly. He smiles back.

He doesn't remember what they talked about. He likes to think he's honest. He likes to think he doesn't fill in the gaps.

The rest of the story is the same as how Sungyeol tells it.

-

This is a lie.

-

(A few months down the road, Woohyun and Sungyeol will be roommates. Myungsoo will have dated the girl from his program for two months before they break up out of guilt. Hoya will have gotten together with his girlfriend again, and they'll have their own apartment. Myungsoo will get perfect on his calculus final and make up for his subpar midterm mark. He doesn't fill in the gaps; he admits the mark might have had something to do with getting drunk for the first time the night before. Woohyun takes him out to dinner after the midterm as an apology, and Myungsoo rolls his eyes at the cheesy lines the other boy employs. They're not for him—Myungsoo thinks they could be. They don't talk about the night before, they don't get drunk that night, and in the morning they still wake up in a tangled heap. Myungsoo knows how to make pancakes. Woohyun's chef d'oeuvre is a bowl of cereal. Sungyeol's cold turns out to be swine flu, but he recovers a few days after they figure out, and life goes on as usual.

For good measure, Woohyun doodles lazy hearts on Sungyeol's cup too. All this earns him is a laugh of disbelief, and the occasional eraser in the head during class.

It's Thursday, and Myungsoo has a calculus midterm tomorrow. He hasn't studied yet. When the door opens and Sungyeol pokes his head in and asks him if he wants to go for coffee, Myungsoo scrapes his chair back, shelves the textbook, and says yes.)


	4. interlude: 我再也不要对你那么好 - (翁航融 滕子琪)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> interlude: woohyun/myungsoo

There's a moment of startling clarity, one that causes him to falter in his tracks, words stumbling to a halt. Myungsoo doesn't seem to notice, a pensive look on his face as he listens to Woohyun's prattle, hands in his pockets and the hood of his sweater shadowing his eyes. There's a moment of clarity that's as brief as it is sudden, before Woohyun puts it away and continues regaling Myungsoo with the story of his cousin's cats.

When Myungsoo calls that night, Woohyun doesn't pick up. He has a girlfriend now, he reminds himself. The phone rings three more times.

Woohyun finds himself waiting for the fourth.


	5. interlude: 当你 - (林俊杰)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> interlude: woohyun/sungyeol
> 
> 如果有一天 我回到从前 回到最原始的我 // if one day i return to the past, return to the most original me

Sungyeol complains about the neighbours upstairs, about the girls next door who leave their music on all night, about having not slept the night before. Sungyeol is cranky in the mornings, sometimes.

Woohyun nods as he takes this in, one eye on the blackboard and the other on his notes. Class hasn't started yet, but the TA had agreed to come in early to run through a lecture over half the class had missed due to a late spring snowstorm.

"Mmhmm," Woohyun says to Sungyeol at semi-appropriate intervals. "Poor you."

"You're not even listening to me!" Sungyeol says, and kicks him under the table.

"I'm taking notes," Woohyun replies calmly, pulling his leg out of the way.

Sungyeol doesn't need to be here—Sungyeol lived close enough to campus that he'd made it to class without depending on the overburdened bus system. Apparently, Sungyeol is here anyway to make Woohyun's life miserable.

Woohyun only invites Sungyeol to sleep over that night to stop his complaining. He doesn't expect Sungyeol to say yes. He doesn't expect Sungyeol to do as he's expected to do either.

He also doesn't expect to remember this moment. He does.


	6. Parabolic Inverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woohyun needs a roommate. Sungyeol does too. ~~Sungyeol is a cactus.~~

  
There is a happy ending.

-

"Could you get my jacket?"

"Could you get a life?"

" _Please_."

Woohyun rolls his eyes at no one in particular as Sungyeol troops back into the apartment, slamming Woohyun's bedroom door open in the process. Woohyun _assumes_ it's his door, because he remembers closing it, and Sungyeol would need to open the door to get in. It's one of those days, and Woohyun isn't surprised.

A few seconds later, Sungyeol all but throws the jacket in Woohyun's face before jamming on his shoes and dragging the door closed behind him—the door sticks a little anyway. Woohyun sighs, pulls the door open, and walks out to find Sungyeol bent over and tying his shoelaces, schoolbag tucked awkwardly under one arm.

"You could always put it down," Woohyun comments as he locks the door.

"Shut _up_ ," Sungyeol growls. There's a thump as his bag hits the ground. Woohyun turns around and leans against the door to wait.

Sungyeol is angry glances and sharp elbows this morning, hair stuck up on the wrong side and shirt a little too rumpled from having spent the night under a pile of textbooks. There's bags under his eyes and the whites of them are more red than anything else, but it's the first day of exams and isn't it the same for them all? But Sungyeol is also a nucleus of disappointments this morning, and so Woohyun drags him to a cafe and sits him down at a table despite his bitching, and shoves a cup of coffee and a muffin in front of him and orders him to eat.

"What the fuck Woohyun, I'm going to be late."

"No you're not," Woohyun says, and takes matters into his own hands. He breaks off a chunk of blueberry muffin and forces it into Sungyeol's mouth. "You skipped dinner," he reminds him. "And lunch."

Sungyeol looks like he wants to say something suitably mean and irritable and scathing, but he can't quite manage without spraying crumbs over the table. He compromises by swallowing without chewing and attacking the muffin with a vengeance. Woohyun hums an indeterminate tune and traces circles on the plastic table and watches the ribbon flutter against the vent. His first exam is in three days. He still has time. Sungyeol has half an hour.

"Just so you know if I'm late I'm blaming you."

"Okay."

Woohyun ends up hanging around the library with his notes open in front of him, toying with the tag from the teabag that's still soaking in his travel mug. Another week and a half, and then life will be worth living again.

-

"By the way, hyung, Sungyeol was looking for a roommate."

The room is warm, and Myungsoo is another few degrees warmer beside him. Woohyun hums a vague response as he stares at the ceiling with his eyes closed, toes curling around the sheets kicked to the foot of the bed. "Is he?"

"Yeah. Hoya hyung is moving out."

"What about you?"

The bed creaks as Myungsoo shrugs. "I already told Sungjong he could stay with me."

"Sungjong?"

"I told you, hyung. Highschool friend."

"Oh, I remember now."

Myungsoo laughs, a quiet chuckle that buries itself in Woohyun's hair as Myungsoo turns on his side, clutching a pillow to his chest. "You're getting old," he says.

"I'll talk to him tomorrow," Woohyun says.

-

Woohyun meets a lot of people. He doesn't remember them all, or even most of them. Girls are the easiest to talk to. He'd learned a long time ago that he has the sort of face that can render them speechless with a grin and a wink and a few well chosen words, a remark about their hairclip or their eyes, the bracelet they're wearing or the bag slung over their shoulder and how they remind him of his one cousin who had been the most popular girl in her school. He asks their names and makes them feel special, because even if he can't remember them all, that doesn't mean that they don't remember him.

Woohyun likes being remembered.

He meets Myungsoo first, even if he doesn't remember it. It's before classes have started and the bookstore is packed. Woohyun drops the slip of paper his booklist is printed on, and Myungsoo happens to be the one who picks it up and hands it to him. Neither of them remember it. It's not really worth mentioning.

Sungyeol has a tendency to stare. This is what Woohyun remembers. Sungyeol has a tendency to stare, and he has a tendency to either push or pull his friend into the store, depending on the day. His face is a little awkward and when he laughs, sometimes he laughs too wide or too loud. Sungyeol also likes his coffee black, but with enough sugar to give the easter bunny cavities. This is what Woohyun learns.

Sungyeol is also in one of his classes, and Woohyun sees him sitting in the third row one day and drops his bag into the seat next to him. "hi," he says. Sungyeol has enough time to look suitably surprised before the professor walks in and accidentally upsets the feedback from the microphone, and Woohyun waits until class is over to tell him that "by the way, I'm Nam Woohyun."

Woohyun gets to class first the following monday, and it's his turn to grin when Sungyeol slides into a seat next to him. "Good morning," Sungyeol says. "Busy weekend?" Woohyun asks.

"Not really."

-

"Hey," Sunggyu calls him one day. Woohyun tucks the phone against his shoulder as he juggles bags of groceries waiting for the bus. "Going out tonight before thesis week, you in?"

"Sure, yeah, whatever." The bus throws up a spray as it pulls up to the curb, passing through a newly created lake from the rainstorm the night before that had washed out any remaining stubborn snow. "Text me later, bus is here," Woohyun says, and flips his phone shut before maneuvering his bus pass out of his pocket.

There's a familiar face at the back of the bus, so Woohyun oblingingly trudges to it and nudges Sungyeol awake. "Hey," Woohyun greets.

"Oh. Hi," Sungyeol replies, weary blinks and a flicker of irritation. Woohyun regrets waking him a little, he looks like he needed the nap.  
"Grocery shopping?" Sungyeol asks, pointing at the obvious bags Woohyun deposists on the floor.

"Yup. Someone has to do it," Woohyun says.

"Yeah," Sungyeol agrees.

Sungyeol pulls out his phone, and Woohyun glances out the window. With the last signs of winter gone, all that was left was the hint of an equally dreary spring. Sungyeol is still playing with his phone when Woohyun looks back.

"I'm going out with friends later tonight, if you want to come," Woohyun blurts out suddenly. Sungyeol's eyes are narrowed in confusion as he glances up. "Bring Myungsoo. If he wants."

"Just text him yourself," Sungyeol replies sharply, and Woohyun wants to kick himself. Sungyeol gets off two stops later, and Woohyun takes his seat.

In the end, Myungsoo shows up and so does Sungyeol, and so does Sungyeol's roommate whose name is Hoya, Woohyun has learned from Myungsoo. They meet up with Sunggyu on the way there quite by accident, introductions are made, and soon enough Woohyun is relating how it happened he was stockholm syndromed into being friends with Sunggyu while Sunggyu insists it's quite the opposite, and retaliates with a warning not to be charmed by Woohyun, because he's actually a huge jerk. It's some time after their second (or third) pitcher, but Woohyun prefers the peanuts. Myungsoo laughs at this, Hoya chuckles, and to Woohyun's surprise, Sungyeol laughs as well before saying "I know". Woohyun tosses a peanut at him.

Halfway through the night, Sungyeol falls asleep against Woohyun's shoulder. When Myungsoo offers to switch seats with Woohyun, Woohyun shakes his head and says that it's alright.

After all, Woohyun has never particularly thought himself to be a jerk.

-

"Sungyeol hyung is still looking for a roommate," Myungsoo mumbles into Woohyun's shoulder. The words dissipate through the weave of his shirt, and Myungsoo tightens his arms around Woohyun's waist. The clock reads just before two, and Woohyun doesn't have the heart to push him away when exhaustion bleeds through his lax grip.

"Is he?" Woohyun asks. He pulls a tshirt and a pair of sweats from the drawer and tosses them onto the bedspread. Myungsoo shifts behind him, his chin now resting bonily against Woohyun, his hair just tickling the back of Woohyun's neck. This is also how Woohyun knows that Myungsoo is tired.

Myungsoo hums a vague agreement.

"I have a question," Woohyun says.

"Do I have to answer?"

"Why did you break up with Minyoung?"

Myungsoo pulls away, and Woohyun finds the gradual lack of warmth a little unsteadying.

-

"I made you coffee," Sungyeol greets him when Woohyun blearily opens his door. Woohyun squints at Sungyeol sitting at the kitchen table, wide awake and already dressed, statistics from a late night of cramming still running an endless litany at the front of his thoughts. The clock tells him its not quite seven, so Woohyun responds with a vague grunt that could be 'thanks' or 'good morning' or 'what are you talking about?' before stumbling to the washroom.

"Thanks," Woohyun does say when he joins Sungyeol at the table some fifteen minutes later, coffee in hand. "Good morning. When did you get up?"

"Before you," Sungyeol answers vaguely, scrolling through the morning news on his laptop. "There's toast in the toaster too."

Woohyun stares at him. "We ran out of bread."

"Not anymore."

Woohyun opens his mouth but thinks better of it, opting instead to grab the toast and shove it into his mouth. "What about you?" Woohyun asks after a moment.

"I already ate."

"Oh."

"Good luck," Sungyeol says when Woohyun gets up to leave.

"Yeah. You too."

-

Summer passes in a lazy haze of nothingness, despite Woohyun taking on a second job at a convenience store. Their lease expires halfway through, and Woohyun has a feeling his roommates are more than glad to see the end of him, and he feels the exact same. So Woohyun moves out early and crashes at Sunggyu's place for a few days. Sungyeol tells him to just stay with them, but Woohyun points out that they'll be seeing enough of each other soon enough.

Woohyun doesn't tell him that there's more than just a place to stay involved.

"I thought you and that Myungsoo kid—"

"He has a girlfriend," Woohyun says, and presses sloppy kisses against Sunggyu's mouth just to piss him off.

-

A hailstorm knocks the tree through Woohyun's window partway through winter vacation, a discovery they make after they come back for dinner one evening, and he contemplates the couch for a whole three minutes before Sungyeol points out the obvious that his bed is more than big enough for two.

"You're okay with sharing a bed with a guy?" Woohyun laughs, just to make sure.

Sungyeol stares at him like he's grown three heads. "I'm not a girl," he says.

"Funny, Myungsoo said the same thing," Woohyun muses.

"You're weird, you know that?" Sungyeol says.

"Look who's talking."

-

Woohyun rolls over and kisses Sungyeol. Sungyeol freezes.

-

"Sungyeol likes _you_ ," Myungsoo says. A beat, and then: "Sunhee and I are dating now."

"Lucky girl," Woohyun says. Myungsoo laces his fingers around the cup, peering at its coffee cream contents. A beat, and then: "does he?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Myungsoo asks.

"I'll ask him tomorrow."

It turns out that Sungyeol still needs a roommate. It turns out that Woohyun does too.

-

This is a happy ending.

Maybe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chronologically: hyperbolic inverse, colour forces and empty space, parabolic inverse, like imperfect pieces


End file.
